The yuletide turns

>> Matt Herskowitz's Gabriel's Message is a holiday disc that clicks

by CHRIS HATHERILL

Put the words Christmas, piano and jazz together and you've got a recipe for fruitcake with extra cheese. It's understandable then that Matt Herskowitz, a pianist whose intricate yet focused stylings have earned accolades from the likes of Dave Brubeck, wasn't sweet on the idea--initially.

"I was a bit cynical about doing a Christmas CD. I got a call from the Pro Piano label in New York, in late '98: 'Matt, we want you to do an album!' Oh, great! 'A Christmas album.' Oh. Great...

"The inspiration didn't come until a bit too late. I was in creative mode, though. I was determined to finish it." The sessions came to naught, but the ideas kept nagging Herskowitz like Dickensian ghosts, hounding him on his way up to Montreal where he met advertising exec David Lieber, "the guy who named Fido Fido."

After 27 years away from the ivories, Lieber wanted to take it up again. His aunt decided to buy him a piano--a family requisite--and it was in the Archambault showroom that he first heard Herskowitz work his magic. Over coffee, Lieber asked Herskowitz to be his teacher.

"After the first lesson," recalls Lieber, "Matt said, 'Here's something I've been working on,' and he played 'Carol of the Bells.' Now, I like Christmas, okay. I look for good Christmas music, and there's so little out there. I asked him what he was going to do with it, and he said, 'Nothing.'"

This led to Herskowitz playing Lieber's staff Christmas party, which led to recording some demos, which blossomed into 35 hours in the studio and the resultant, Lieber-sponsored CD Gabriel's Message. The album balances traditional yuletide songs with 20th-century pop nuggets, all delivered in Herskowitz's elegant, innovative manner--totally cheese-free.

"On the more traditional songs," says Herskowitz, "I just went with the original ideas. 'God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen' is a bit modal-sounding, and 'Gabriel's Message' is a medieval chant, so I played that up. But for the longest time, I didn't know what to do with 'Frosty the Snowman.'

"I was just playing around one day and I came up with that ostinato rhythmic pattern. That's what did it, with the pop ones--coming up with a single idea that shapes or transforms the whole piece. 'Rudolph' was quite easy, once I came up with the Brazilian rhythm. I wanted to call it 'Rudolph Goes to Rio,' but alas, the publisher wouldn't allow it."

Hervé Blondon, an award-winning illustrator whose work has graced the New Yorker, Forbes and the Washington Post, contributed the jacket art, and Lieber now enthuses over plans for a television production incorporating extensive artwork by Blondon. It'll be nice to see a holiday special that's sincere in its perception of Christmas as more than a commercial frenzy, something as genuine and original as the album. "I'm not the first person to do a serious arrangement of 'Silent Night,'" says Herskowitz, "but I might be the first to do 'Frosty the Snowman.'"

Herskowitz performs the album at Bily Kun on Sunday, Dec. 10 at 5pm and 6:30pm and Sunday, Dec. 17 at 10:30pm, free